Jakob Schauer - In Death I Am Caressing You (2021)

The new Forwind release comes courtesy of Vienna based artist Jakob Schauer. ‘In death I am caressing you’ is a seven track twist of ghostly disruptions, glitched electronics and vaporous blasts of noise.

Developed around Jakob’s visual approach to the writing process, it’s hard to avoid the introduction of memories and perceptions from our shared visual sphere during the last few years. ‘Our technological, social and political reality... who hasn’t been affected?’ While this wasn’t a set concept or intention, as ever the abstract can unwittingly end up as a tool to represent reality whether here and now, there and then, timely or timeless. Death and destruction, hope and reemergence, a repetition of cycles. Some things seem stuck in their own glitch, repeating forever with time alone dictating the variations.

In death I am caressing you’s sounds are generated from a wide array of analog and synthetic sources in an attempt to build ‘hyperrealistic acoustic atmospheres and sonic gestures’. The discarnate disappear, only to return like screeching spectres swallowed up in something intensely melancholic that needs release. This sharp dynamic shows up in several parts of the work creating both a sense of tension and welcome catharsis.

While there are undoubtedly some dark aspects to the release, it is also home to a form of cracked radiance during some finely dialled pieces including the title track and beautiful closer ‘Touched with Mona’. Its general themes may be demise and departure but it’s far from the flat of its back as it moves and engages in its glimmering otherworldly atmospheres.

The latest Forwind release will be available in a limited edition Digipak and digital.